THE MENACE OF STATE RIGHTS 1ST

In the Senate, Rowan of Kentucky moved an
amendment requiring in all cases the concurrence
of seven of the proposed ten judges. In a speech
which was typical of current criticism of the Court
he bitterly assailed the judges for the protection
they had given the Bank — that "political jug-
gernaut/' that "creature of the perverted corpo-
rate powers of the Federal Government" — and
he described the Court itself as "placed above the
control of the will of the people, in a state of dis-
connection with them, inaccessible to the chari-
ties and sympathies of human life." The amend-
ment failed, however, and in the end the bill itself
was rejected.

Yet a proposition to swamp the Court which
received the approval of four-fifths of the House of
Representatives cannot be lightly dismissed as an
aberration. Was it due to a fortuitous coalescence
of local grievances, or was there a general under-
lying cause? That Marshall's principles of con-
stitutional law did not entirely accord with the
political and economic life of the nation at this
period must be admitted. The Chief Justice was
at once behind his times and ahead of them. On
the one hand, he was behind his times because
he failed to appreciate adequately the fact that